122 ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON STOCK FEEDS AND FEEDING 



that nitrogenous compounds present in wastes that are passed 

 off in the processes of digestion, such as the wastes from mucus, 

 bile, digestive juices, etc., have no connection with the protein of 

 the food in the experiment. It seems that the smaller the per 

 cent, of protein in the food, as in hay or straw for example, the 

 greater are the amounts of these waste products in the manure. 

 The writer conducted some digestion experiments on Bermuda 

 and lespedeza (Japan clover) hays of low quality, and found in 

 some cases when other feeds as cotton-seed meal, corn chops and 

 molasses were fed with these hays, a negative digestibility for the 

 protein of these hays. It is reasonable to suppose that some of 

 the protein in these hays was digested. The digestibility of fat 

 is difficult to arrive at because the wastes from the bile, which are 

 present in the feces, are soluble in ether, which extracts matter 

 that is calculated as fat. The digestibility of the same kind of 

 feed is perhaps influenced by several factors such as season, 

 climate, fertilizer, curing, handling, etc., so that the digestibility 

 of a feed may vary with these conditions. 



From the foregoing we can readily understand that the di- 

 gestibilities as given in Table I are perhaps not always accurate, 

 yet they serve in giving us an approximate value of feed stuffs. 



The Per Cent. Digestible is often spoken of as the coefficient 

 of digestibility. In order to acquaint the student with a full 

 understanding of digestibility let us take the digestibility of corn 

 for example. 

 Coefficient of Digestibility or Digestibility of Corn in Per Cent. 



That is, in 100 lbs. of the grain of corn, 76 per cent, of the 

 10.3 lbs. of protein is digestible, 86 per cent, of the 5 lbs. of fat 

 is digestible, 93 per cent, of the 70.4 lbs. of nitrogen free extract 

 is digestible and 58 per cent, of the 2.2 lbs. of fiber is digestible. 

 We can represent this in another way by stating the total pounds 

 of digestible nutrients in 100 lbs. of corn grain. 



